Dear Santa, Here are my top 5.
I thought about calling this post my Black Friday Lust List. Ok, I admit it – neither title is great. Anyway…Here is my holiday wish list. Some photographic and some travel related. Not in any particular order but here goes: Tissot T-Touch II – This is one of those watches that should never be called [...]
Multimedia: Lumen Dei Participant Michael Ettema
Tweet I spoke too soon. Apparently, I still have a few more SoundSlides slide show to present. Todays entry is by Michael Ettema. Michael came to Lumen Dei packing light. He sported the only Leica on the trip. His whole kit, three lens and body all fit into a small bum bag. I tried using [...]
Multimedia: Lumen Dei participant, Martin & Alik Sojka
Here is more work by participants from the Ladakh Lumen Dei workshop. Today’s works is by Martin & Alik Sojka. The Martins are from Slovakia, and are very talented photographers. (Martin also brews a mean bottle of Hruškovica. A home brew made of peaches that will knock your socks off! It is good for what [...]
Multimedia: Lumen Dei participant, Yves Perreault
While in Ladakh, I lead a short spur-of-the-moment workshop on Soundslide Plus and the basic concepts of a photo essay. We had several participants express their interest in trying their hand at it. I told each of them, if they got it to me I would gladly post their work for others to see. Here [...]
Checking in from Ladakh
Just checking in. We have had a great time with a very diverse team and some very talented photographers. Just got back from Lamayuru today and heading out tomorrow morning to the mountain lake of Tso Moriri. The net has been almost impossible. So it is all I can do to even post this small [...]
Lumen Dei 2010
I am sitting in Singapore on my way to India for three weeks. I will be co-leading the 2010 Ladakh Lumen Dei with my buddy David duChemin. David and I started this workshop/tour back in 2007 and it has become something of tradition. We were told, we could never pull it off. The nay sayer [...]
Lumen Dei Trophies: Examples of SoundSlides by our Students
You still have till the end of the day here in Malaysia to enter the SoundSlides Plus giveaway. I will stop taking entries at midnight my time (GMT +8). It’s been fun. Honestly, I’m humbled and somewhat amazed by all the selfless and creative ideas that have been submitted. I guess with my background in humanitarian [...]
May’s Wallpaper
Here is your May Wallpaper. I am thrilled at the amount of downloads I have been receiving. Many folks have expressed how much they are liking these. So, my request you you is; share the gift and pass on the link. I love it when I get emails telling me of how people have seen [...]
“Shares well with others.” or “Like it? Link it!”
Over the past few weeks, I have been having several conversations with photographers about sharing images and about copyright. I will be sharing two of these with you in upcoming Depth of Field interviews. The first is with Marco Ryan with Focus for Humanity; Marco explained in simple terms the principles and philosophy behind net [...]
Back Home… for 48 hours
The team left for our respective homes on April 17th. Alou and I returned to Penang and to our daughter Jessie. But almost as quick as I got back I will leave again for America and some meetings. Alou will stay home and spend time with Jessie; I envy her. I always get little side [...]
Lumen Dei: Haridwar – The Kumbh Mela
The Kumbh Mela is a Hindu festival that rotates between four different regions in India every three years, thus, only returning to each region every 12 years. Haridwar sits in the foothills of the Himalaya. Many years ago we lived a few miles north of here and used to take the train through this sleepy [...]
Lumen Dei: Varanasi
All my dreams of posting daily are proven to be just that; dreams. The net was intolerably slow in New Delhi, non-exsitant in Varanasi and once we arrived to Haridwar and the Kumbh Mela we found that the government internet connection at the hotel has been blocked for security reasons. I am now posting this [...]
Lumen Dei: Kumbh Mela Day 2
Today was a little harder than yesterday. The new or shall I say, renewed experience was gone and it just seemed like I was hunting for images. Don’t let anyone fool you. Getting great images everyday is next to impossible. Sure, good images can be found…most of the time; but great? Why do you think [...]
Lumen Dei: Kumbh Mela Day 1
The group is all arriving today from all over India and abroad. Yesterday, Alou, Gavin, Lesley (one of the participants) and I went to the Nizamuddin Shrine and spent a few hours shooting images there. It seems we timed it right for this group. Because, this week is the “Urst” or the commemoration of the [...]
Lumen Dei '09 – Special guest instructor Ami Vitale.
David DuChemin and I are thrilled to be announcing plans for next year’s Lumen Dei tour. We’re still working out details like budget and itinerary, but we’ll have that up and on the site soon. Here are the broad strokes. September 2009. Ladakh. Special guest instructor Ami Vitale. That last part should make you very, [...]
Guest Post: The Illusion of FREE
Matt’s in London this week and he’s asked me to fill a spot. Rather than touch on the artistic and philosophical side of things, which Matt does so well on his own, I want to bring you in on an on-going conversation Matt and I are having about money. I’ll do that by addressing the [...]
How to grow, pain and all.
Don’t be afraid of critique. (Photo by David DuChemin) I was having Teh Tarek with Grungeman a day back and he said something that opened up a long conversation. He was bemoaning the fact that here in Malaysia there are no photographers that take interns on. I started to think about that and wondered why. [...]
Steve McCurry Sharp
One of the fun and quite frankly, thrilling things that digital imaging has been able to deliver that film never did, is the ability to give you truly razor sharp images. Yeah, we had sharp images in the film days, but not like what we can get now. With the digital cameras ability to grab [...]
Ladakh – Mulling Things Over.
I returned to a house full of company. It has been fun, old friends from the US and my daughter’s home school from India. All very welcome friends. It has been hard to post and it has taken time to get the two new galleries up from Lumen Dei. But they are up and running. [...]
Ju-ley!
Ju-ley is the Ladakhi equivalent of “Aloha”. It means hello, goodbye, thank you and many other things. So, Ju-ley from Leh, Ladakh, 11,000 + ft and a very slow internet cafe. This has been a great trip. I have stated it once before, we have a group of very talented photographers and they are “snapping” [...]
Day two: Nizamuddin
Had a great first full day of Lumen Dei 08. Pretty tiered. So without going into a lot of details, here are a few shots from today’s shoot. By the way we have a lot of very talented photographers in this group. I am looking forward to posting some of their images in the future. [...]
Old Delhi Take Two
David taking a break in Chandni Chowk. Click any image to view larger. We went into old Delhi once more to today to see if the Metro was running and what obstacles we might in counter after the Delhi bombings. That sounds crazy even writing it! I really felt off my game, so to speak. [...]
Lumen Dei One Day – A Success
David Duchemin and his friend. David introducing his “exposure triangle.” The Lumen Dei One Day is over and it went very well. No, it went great and I gotta tell you, I had a blast. For one thing, I really enjoy hanging with David Duchemin. It is scary how much we think a like. My [...]
I shoot for mostly NGOs and nonprofits. I photograph images of the unknown, the forgotten and the helpless. These are often the stories that most people overlook. 
